It's used as both here. Extremely intelligent or, colloquially, as something excellent, very good. "You passed your exams? That's brilliant!"

And, if you want to get really colloquial... in Glasgow we'd go even further and call it 'pure dead brilliant'. laugh

LabRat smile


Athos: If you'd told us what you were doing, we might have been able to plan this properly.
Aramis: Yes, sorry.
Athos: No, no, by all means, let's keep things suicidal.

The Musketeers